


in the right place after years of spinning 'round

by cashewdani



Category: Olympics RPF, Swimming RPF
Genre: Babies, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Michael tries to clear his throat, staring up at the ceiling. “You don’t get sick from wet hair. If you did, we would both be dead.”</i> Plus twin babies. And not enough makeouts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the right place after years of spinning 'round

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss_bennie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_bennie/gifts).



> Un'beta'ed. All mistakes are mine. miss_bennie was sick this week and we had some conversations and now this exists.

Michael wakes up mid-cough and not able to breathe through his nose, so, that’s probably what that sharp pain between his eyes was about last night. And that’s apparently still there. Awesome. He takes a sip from the glass of water on the nightstand that he doesn’t remember filling up, which means there’s a really good chance it’s been collecting dust for a week and a half. Again, awesome.

He’s trying to be quiet, in case Ryan somehow slept through that fit, but he can hear him muttering from the other side of the bed. “I told you not to leave the pool with wet hair the other night.”

Michael tries to clear his throat, staring up at the ceiling. “You don’t get sick from wet hair. If you did, we would both be dead.”

“So you’re finally admitting that you are in fact sick.” Ryan turns to look at him, and even though Michael’s pretty sure he must look terrible, he says, “Maybe. Could still be allergies.” That’s what Michael kept saying last night, as he tried to unsuccessfully make it through the rest of the Ravens game.

“Which you don’t have. Yep, probably that.” Ryan’s annoyance starts to maybe shift a little into pity, and Michael hasn’t been this happy that one of the babies starts crying since they were born. He says, “I got it,” swinging his legs out of the bed with what feels like requires too much effort.

“No you don’t.” Ryan latches onto his shoulder.

“Why not? I’m capable of walking around, I’m not an invalid. If,” he emphasizes the word, “it is anything, it’s just a cold.”

Ryan’s already moving to try and find a shirt, picking things indiscriminately off the dresser and the floor. “Yeah, but if the kids get sick, they could get pneumonia and die and I don’t know about you, but I’m really not in favor of that happening.”

Christopher and Sophia were born five weeks early eight months ago and spent a good number of days in the NICU, and so they’re reminded at every pediatrician's visit how important it is to keep them healthy. The last one being a week ago when they had to get their second flu shot booster, and is probably where Michael picked up this cold in the first place.

“But you were going to go to the design meeting today.”

“Let me repeat the whole dead kids thing being a negative for you. Plus, you look awful. Go make some tea if you want to get up so badly, but let me handle the rest.”

Once Ryan’s moving towards the door though, the already shredded bottoms of his Florida sweatpants dragging on the carpet, Michael’s not so sure he actually wants to leave this bed. He coughs again and his headache spreads out to his temples.

He can hear on the monitor the quiet voice Ryan uses with the babies when they’ve just woken up, the one that’s almost a whisper but still filled with high inflection and excitement. “Soph and Toph, good morning! Look at my big kids, aw, yeah, you’re happy to see Poppa Ry.”

Michael hadn’t realized when he’d agreed to the names that not only had Ryan decided already to shorten each of them, but that in doing so they would rhyme, and basically make him sound like a child with a speech impediment ordering surf and turf if he addressed them both at the same time. It’s not the worst thing, but it’s not the greatest either.

“Thanks for letting us sleep last night, kiddos. Daddy’s not feeling so well today, jeah, so, we’ve got to be extra good. That means no pooping up your backs, okay?”

He listens to Ryan change each of them, filling them in on what they missed in the football game, and asking if they want applesauce or pureed plums mixed in with their cereal this morning, and if he didn’t feel quite so gross, it would probably be a really nice way to start his day off.

He gets up eventually though to get a tissue to blow his nose and and brush his teeth, and figures the very least he can do is get the breakfast started. Michael does make sure to wash his hands the way doctors do on TV before going into surgery, because he knows Ryan is going to ask if he contaminated anything in mixing the stuff together.

Ryan comes down the stairs, a baby on each hip, and Michael tries not to laugh at how difficult it looks. He only succeeds in making himself start coughing up a lung instead. “You okay, man?” Ryan asks, plopping Sophia in her high chair first, and then Christopher.

“Yeah, I just didn’t know how far from game shape you actually were until I saw you trying to hold them both,” wiping at his tearing left eye with the back of his hand and then waving at the babies. “Hi, guys!”

“They’re squirmy, Mike, geez, you’re the one carrying them in that Bjorn thing the next time we go someplace. One on each side through the whole zoo, or park or whatever.” He takes the bowl of cereal Michael holds out after they’re buckled in. He threw in plums, since that was already opened from yesterday. “Plus, you seem like you’re winded from making breakfast, so I wouldn’t talk.”

“You want eggs?” Michael asks him, changing the subject, and trying to put out of his mind how he can’t even kiss his children good morning right now, forget about show them around a zoo.

“I’ll make ‘em when I’m done with this.” He puts on a big excited face, followed by some airplane noises and gets a spoonful into Chris. “Pour yourself some OJ, and just sit down and relax.”

“I can make the eggs.”

Wiping the purple stuff off Sophia’s chin with the side of the spoon, he says, “Yeah, you could, but then the whole time I was eating them, I’d be worried about your germs crawling all over the place.”

“You’re going to Lysol the kitchen down as soon as I get out of here, aren’t you?”

“Yep. So, better get that juice now, it’ll be the last time you’re allowed to touch the fridge without decontaminating yourself first.”

“I don’t even like orange juice that much.” Plus the thought of it on his throat at the moment makes him have to catch another fit of coughing in his elbow.

“Have tea then.” Michael is not really into the way Ryan sounds a lot like Debbie does when he’s being difficult. “Use that stuff my mom brought back from visiting the extended family in the homeland.”

Michael fills a mug in the sink and throws it into the microwave, too drained to deal with the teapot. He starts trying to massage his temple without making it too obvious that that’s what he’s doing, but Ryan catches him from the corner of his eye anyway.

“Go lay down.”

“The tea...” Michael tries to say, but Ryan cuts him off.

“I’ll bring the tea. And food. And some drugs for you, okay? Just go rest so you can get better fast.”

“And so you can do that Lysol thing.”

“Go!” Ryan says, laughing a little and elbowing him in the ass as he walks past.

Once Michael flips on the TV and props himself up against the pillows on the couch, he’s really happy that Ryan is such a good guy that he’s apparently going to run this whole household by himself while taking care of three other people.

Like 20 minutes later, he watches Ryan bring the babies, one at a time this time, and prop them in their boppies on the floor in front of the farm thing that makes animal noises when you bash at it with your fists. Then he comes back with tea with lots of honey and a bottle of cough syrup, and scrambled eggs with just a splash of hot sauce in them, all set out on the coffee table like a very sad buffet. This is something Ryan’s mom did for him when he was little, he knows. “I love you, Ry,” Michael says, kind of out of it, and Ryan kisses his forehead, and yeah, like he said, he loves him.

***

 

When he wakes up later, the babies are bouncing in their swings, babbling away like they can really understand what the other is saying, and Sports Center is somehow at exactly the same place it was the last time he was conscious.

Ryan’s on his iPad, one headphone in, his thumb rubbing Michael’s ankle.

“Hey,” Michael croaks out, not really sure if he’s feeling better or worse.

“Hey,” Ryan says back, pressing some things on the screen and turning to look at him. “How you doing?”

Michael chooses to cough as a response to that. “Was I snoring?”

“Like a truck.”

“Do trucks actually snore?” Michael asks, and Ryan’s giving him that look that’s basically, aw, my stupid drunk husband.

“You need anything? I’m pretty sure your tea went cold like an hour ago.”

“How long was I out?”

“About that long.” Then Ryan squints at him. “You look a little red.”

“I’m okay,” Michael says, making himself sit up. His head definitely did not weigh a thousand pounds when he first came down here, he takes note of, then, the way the TV seems to be wobbling just a little.

“Come here,” Ryan says, and Michael didn’t mean it to sounds so whiny when he says, “No.” Or more accurately, he says no like it is actually spelled with five o’s.

Ryan takes the heaphone out of his ear, and puts the iPad on the end table. “I just want to see if you’re hot.”

Michael rubs under his eyes, trying to wake up. “You always think I’m hot.”

Ryan smirks at him, flirting. “Yeah, you’re right, I do.” Michael can’t believe this is happening right now. 

“Where’s the guy who wanted to bleach every surface I looked at earlier?”

“Eh, he realized he’d already slept next to the sick bastard. Come here and let me check you out. Play a little doctor.”

“Stop.”

“Seriously, Mike, your eyes are bright as hell right now and you’ve got f-ing girl cheeks, they’re so pink.” He leans in closer to Michael. “You look good.” So close Michael can feel him breathing. “Way too good not to have a fever.”

Michael can remember his mother kissing their foreheads when they were sick, and for whatever reason, is positive in this moment that Ryan’s going to do that. Maybe because he’s been being a mom to him all day. “You can’t get sick!” Michael squawks, a little bit paranoid and a little bit embarrassed. “Seriously, if we’re both sick then one of our moms has to come to take care of the kids, and I don’t want them to come. They always fuck up the DVR.”

“I’m just going to put my hand on your head, relax.” Ryan lays the back of his hand against Michael’s forehead, the way they were taught to do in their infant care class and it feels cool and dry and big. “Yeah, you’ve definitely got a temperature.”

“Fuck, seriously?”

“Yeah, but, let’s find out if I have to take you to the emergency room or not,” Ryan says, tossing him a blanket while getting up off the sofa.

“Don’t joke about that, please,” Michael says, feeling pitiful.

“Just make sure that Soph doesn’t punch her brother in the face while I’m gone, okay?” And Michael nods, even though he’s sure watching two jumping babies is only going to make his dizziness worse.

Sophia is definitely the dominant twin, already seems a little more aggressive and serious, despite the fact that she just learned to hold herself upright a few weeks ago. She has Michael’s eyes, and they’re pretty sure she’s his and Christopher, who was born with more hair than any baby they’d ever seen and is the most mellow child, is Ryan’s, but it’s not a definitive. The first time he saw Sophia smile, her face was pure Ryan and the ears Christopher is currently hiding under curls might very well define him as a Phelps. They don’t want to know, honestly, that was part of it, and really, they can both belong to one of them, just as easily as one or the other. But they both grew inside Allison and were both from the same donor’s eggs, and so there’s enough that’s the same already even if they’re not sure on the other stuff.

He watches their chubby legs going up and down, up and down, and again, like earlier this morning, just wants to go over and hold them really close.

But then Ryan’s coming back in and shoving this weird thermometer they bought for what seemed like way too much money into his ear, and the thing is beeping that his internal body temp is currently 101.3.

He thrusts two Advil in Michael’s hand and a glass of water that’s way too big. “I’m going to put the kids down for a nap, and then we’re getting in the bath.”

“We who?” Michael asks around the pills on his tongue.

“Me and you.”

“I’m not taking a bath with you,” Michael says, curling back up in the bend of the couch.

“We’ll talk about it in a little while,” Ryan says, brushing Michael’s hair back, before scooping up Sophia, “Let’s go, little lady. Time to rest. And don’t get any ideas, Toph, I’ll be back for you.”

Michael watches some coverage on the WNBA in between shivering and sweating and listening to each of the babies cry in turn when Ryan puts them in their cribs.

***

 

When they’d bought this place in Maryland, Ryan had pushed really hard for one of those tubs you can almost swim in. Like, Michael’s honestly a little shocked he hasn’t tried teaching the twins in there yet. But Michael hasn’t liked taking baths since he was a kid. Sitting in a bathtub didn’t make him relax, it made him want to train.

Which is why he thinks it’s incredibly stupid to be doing this right now.

“Come on, you’ll feel better, I promise. Get that clammy sweat off, cool you down. It’ll be good,” Ryan says, rubbing his back in small circles like it’ll help him be convincing.

“Why can’t I shower? It’ll do the same thing.”

“Because I’ll worry about you passing out and splitting your head open. And I don’t want to take a shower with you. I want to take a bath.” He plays with the taps a little, more steam filling up the bathroom. Ryan takes off his t-shirt, pulls down his sweats and his boxers, and climbs in, sighing. Michael watches him slink down, his body coming loose, and maybe it won’t be the worst. Nothing is going to make him want to work out at this moment.

Michael undresses himself too, Ryan watching predatorily like he’s not staring at an Olympian no longer in Olympic shape, with a fever and a chapped up nose. Ryan holds his hand out to him, and Michael climbs in, settles with his back to Ryan’s chest, and tries to take a deep breath that doesn’t seem to hurt so much at the moment.

The only sounds are the sloshing water and the babies breathing through the monitor.

Michael closes his eyes, as Ryan takes a washcloth and runs it over his shoulders. His chest. Down his stomach, and Michael sighs.

“See, isn’t this nice?” Ryan asks and Michael nods.

“I don’t even care that they did this in Pretty Woman,” he says, with a laugh that of course turns into a cough.

“Please tell me you haven’t actually watched that movie.”

Michael’s watched it more times in his life than he can remember. “I know you’ve seen it. Everyone’s seen it. Especially if they have sisters. Or moms. Or girlfriends.” 

“Yeah, well, how many inches of therapy do you think you have wrapped around you right now? Sports Illustrated never took my measurements like they did yours.” Ryan kisses him under his ear, on his neck, one of the spots that still feels like it’s a temperature it’s not meant to be.

“I knew you’d seen it,” Michael says, shivering from the fever, or Ryan’s hands, or the way the droplets from the washcloth are evaporating off his arms. Rubbing himself against Ryan in a way he doesn’t mean to, but that Ryan seems to appreciate anyway.

“Let’s wash your hair before you start something you’re not going to be able to finish.”

Ryan stretches to grab the 2-in-1 bottle of Head and Shoulders which Michael is pretty sure is still part of the gigantic first shipment he got back in 2012 for doing the commercial, squeezing some into his palm. He works the shampoo over Michael’s scalp, massaging it in, and Michael’s head doesn’t hurt right now. Nothing hurts right now.

Ryan shifts out from underneath him, placing one of those big hands under his neck for support. “Now, tilt back,” he tells him, quietly, using one of the takeout containers from the Chinese place, to pour a cascade of water down over Michael’s hair. “One more time,” he says, and Michael says back a version of what they always say to the babies while washing them in the sink.

“Gotta make sure I’m all clean so no one knows how much trouble I am.”

“You’re not trouble,” Ryan tells him, running his fingers down Michael’s part, checking to see if he got all the soap.

“It’s not even dinner time yet and so far today you’ve fed me, and taken care of me, and the kids and the house, and now you’re fucking giving me a bath, Ry.”

“You’d do it for me.” He would, there’s no question about it. “We’re a team, Mike, and I know you prefer solo sports, but I think you get it. Today, you needed a hand. I’m sure I’ll break some bone of mine sooner rather than later and you’ll bring me ice and painkillers and help me wrap the cast up in plastic bags.”

“So we can take a bath like this again.”

“Jeah, see, it’s nice.” Michael’s sure Ryan is going to try again to kiss him, but he just says, “But let’s get you out, and dry, and into some clean clothes before I’ve got to toss one of the kids in here, because law of averages is going to say one of them pissed through to the crib sheets.”

“I’ll clean...”

“Don’t even say it, you’re back on the couch, or back in the bed. I can’t keep up this Super Dad routine forever. You’ve got to get better.”

“Okay,” Michael agrees, standing up to grab a towel and dry off, passing another one from the rack to Ryan. The twins are making the snuffling sounds that mean they have probably only another few minutes before they want out of their room, and right on schedule, once he and Ryan have some clothes on, the babies are whimpering in the nursery.

They’ll lay on the couch together, after, the babies army crawling around on the floor while Anchorman edited for TV and infant ears, plays on TBS. Ryan brings him another dose of Advil, and some rum drink with lime and honey in it that Ike let Ryan have when he was sick once he grew hair on his chest.

Michael forgets he’s not supposed to kiss Ryan when he comes to bed, hours after Michael climbed in there himself. He’s all exhausted and looped up on NyQuil and Ryan feels so cool and solid when he pulls him closer. It’s funny, because Ryan’s mouth is always hot, but tonight it’s almost like he was downstairs eating ice cream.

And so Michael’s thinking about desserts and when the last time might have been that he couldn’t just kiss Ryan whenever he wanted to, and he doesn’t know how he used to do it.

“Your fever’s spiking again,” Ryan says, hands still on the side of Michael’s face when he has to pull back and try and catch his breath.

“I don’t want to go a day without kissing you,” Michael says, his voice hoarse.

“Yeah, I know,” Ryan says, kissing him again, mouth still cold and open. “But let me get you some more drugs.”

Michael tells him, “Not yet,” and keeps kissing Ryan even though he’s groggy and hot. “Stay.”

“A little while,” Ryan says, settling on top of Michael, cool skin touching him all over. Michael shudders and arches and kisses. Thinks about returning the favor to Ryan when he inevitably comes down with whatever this is.

In their dark bedroom, the babies sleeping down the hall, Michael’s sick and happy.


End file.
